Mystic Rider (3 page)

“I don’t know.” Chantal paced the parquet floor, working up
her courage. “He should have left Paris for Italy when he had the chance. He
knew we would not let Pauline and the children come to harm. It was reckless
foolishness on both their parts.”

It had been foolishness to refuse to take the oath, also, but
Pierre had become a priest because he held noble ideas. Chantal was more
pragmatic. Noble ideas seldom fed the poor and often led to death. Dead was
dead, no matter how one got there.

“You know your father will not approve of whatever you are
thinking,” Girard warned, well versed in Chantal’s ability to wheedle her way
into getting whatever she wanted.

“He would not approve of Pauline rotting in prison through
no fault of her own either.” She pivoted on the marble tiles, her skirt
dragging on the floor behind her.

“Supporting a traitor is an act of treason,” Girard intoned
without inflection, giving no indication of his opinion one way or another.

“He’s her
brother
!”
Chantal clasped her hands nervously, not certain she dared ask Girard to break
the law. But she could not very well go to the prison on her own. She’d
survived so far not because she was strong, but because she wasn’t stupid.

The maid hurried in with the silver bell wrapped in clean
felt. How fortunate that the clapper was missing, or Chantal felt certain it
would be ringing in warning of her rash behavior.

“This is a gift to the guards who keep Pauline.” The
declaration appeared on her tongue without conscious thought. She was not
usually quick with a lie, but once she considered the words, she found they
truly were not a lie. “Find out where she is being held; then present it to
them and ask if I might secure the bond of the prisoners and have them released
in my name.”

How amazing that she should suddenly utter phrases she’d
heard since childhood, as if
she
were
the lawyer in the family.

“Oh, madame, you cannot bring a defrocked priest here,” the
maid whispered in horrified tones. “It is a sacrilege!”

“That depends on whether you’re speaking of Rome or Paris,”
Girard corrected. “There, he is a hero. Here, he is a traitor to our cause.”

Chantal waved aside the rhetoric. “He is my brother-in-law,
and his sister and her children are suffering for his beliefs. He is the same
man who blessed this house a year ago, not the evil Inquisitor the radicals
would make of him and others like him.”

“It is not our place to change the laws,” Girard insisted.
Once his mind was made up, it became an immovable object.

She might be merely an idle lady with musical talents, but
Chantal had devoted her life to the well-being of her small family. She hummed
beneath her breath to suppress her frustration as she’d learned to do. Hysteria
would never aid her cause. There were times when she wished herself a foot
taller and a hundred pounds heavier so she could pitch obstacles out of her
way.

She took the bell from the maid and unfolded the cloth to
admire the gems twinkling back at her. She tapped her fingernails against the
silver. Warmth and assurance instantly wrapped around her like a cloak.

She did not want to let the bell go, but she must. Lifting
it from the cloth, she hugged it, then shoved it at Girard, who grabbed it
instinctively.

“Go,” she said, modulating her voice into persuasive tones
she had learned at a very early age. Her toddler tantrums had caused people to
flee her presence, but sweetness never failed. “Be swift, and be kind. Bring
Pauline to me once you have found her.”

At the maid’s anguished cry of protest, Chantal turned and
bestowed a comforting smile upon her. “Pierre will not wish to harm his sister
again. Do not fret.”

The calming effect of her voice produced the desired result.
She knew she played upon their emotions, but she could not regret her
manipulation if it saved Pauline. The maid’s frown disappeared, and she
curtsied. Girard smiled approvingly and bowed himself out. No further argument
strained Chantal’s already fragile patience.

Her father had scolded her often enough for using her
appealing ways to encourage others to do what they should not, but sometimes it
was difficult to differentiate between right and wrong. This was one of those
times.

The law was unfair and ridiculous. Let the pope go to jail.
Let the Assembly go to hell. Priests
ought
to be loyal to the church.

She paced the floor, allowing her true feelings to emerge in
an angry hum. She must calm down. She did not want to be out of sorts when her
father arrived. He’d not been himself lately. The schism between the radicals
and conservative Jacobins was widening, fraying the glorious Revolution that
had made all men equal.

Wiser minds would surely prevail, Chantal told herself. She
would secure Pauline’s freedom, and this episode of wrong thinking would be
forgotten in a few weeks. That was the way of it here — the mood of the city
shifted with the wind.

She should order rooms prepared for the children. They would
be horribly frightened. She would write them a song!

With the relief of returning to some small part of her ordinary
routine, she retreated to the marvelous piano her father had ordered all the
way from Austria. She’d been told that Wolfgang Mozart composed on one just
like it. The lighter tones suited her ear better than the heavy English one
she’d learned on.

Earlier, she had composed some simple lyrics for the
rollicking notes of the “Carmagnole,” the dance tune she’d recently heard in
the streets, but they did not buoy her sagging spirits. She played through the
triumphant opening of another revolutionary song she’d introduced to her
father’s friends — “
Ça ira
!” — “We will
win!”

Except, since her first innocent version, new lyrics had emerged
to express bloodshed as victory. People were fond of desecrating pretty tunes
with violent images.

The songs no longer made her feel optimistic. She was like
the clapperless bell, echoing the empty chimes of others and not ringing
proudly with her own music.

It wasn’t like her to be out of sorts like this. She sat on
the piano bench and forced her fingers into a tune that the children would
enjoy. Little Marie was only three — Chantal ran a light trill of notes that she
heard when Marie laughed. Anton was five and much like his big barrel-chested
father, who had died last year from an infection after being maimed in a duel. Foolish
man. Deep bass notes crashed from her fingers.

Dead, all dead
played from the keys.

Shoving the bench back, she stood and paced again. She could
not expect Pauline’s immediate return. Girard would have to find the right
prison, locate a malleable guard, grease many palms, negotiate, and maneuver. Perhaps
they would let him visit with Pauline, reassure her. Nothing was ever done
swiftly these days. Maybe tomorrow…

She couldn’t bear to think of Pauline rotting in prison for
even so long. Her sister-in-law was gently raised and frail, and the children
were too young. This was such
foolishness
.

Chantal returned to the piano and crashed a few chords of
thunder and lightning. Her fingers tumbled across the keys like rain. She was a
whirlwind of anxiety and doubt. These past months since she’d owned it, the
bell had soothed her, but now that it was gone, her fears raced out of control.

She let her emotions flow in her voice and released them in
song.

She didn’t hear the maid announce a visitor. She turned
because a large block of silence mysteriously absorbed her chaotic chords.

She gaped in shock.

A monk in long brown robes stood just inside the doorway. A
cowl hid his features, but the soft linen of his robe did nothing to disguise
his wide shoulders, lithe grace, and air of authority as he strode into the
music chamber. A rope belted his narrow waist, and his long brown fingers
clenched a gnarled oak staff.

“I have come to retrieve my chalice,” the monk intoned in
notes that shivered up and down Chantal’s spine like a sensual caress.

She had no idea what chalice he meant, but there was
something about the confidence with which he spoke that almost convinced her
that he had every right to take it.

Ian Olympus controlled the effect of the exotic female on
his gyrating wits by gripping his staff. Exhausted by his extraordinary journey
inland to a gated city teeming with the best and worst of humanity, he had
wanted only to claim the chalice and head home.

Her musical voice had reeled him into this cold chamber as
effortlessly as if he were a fish on a hook. He, the powerful Council Leader of
Aelynn, had been caught by a shimmering minnow.

Accustomed to Aelynn’s fresh sea breezes and the silent
peace of his countrymen’s shielded thoughts, Ian had chosen to travel as much
as he could by water. On rivers, he needn’t deal with the maddening blasts of
excessive passion from Others. Upon arrival in the city, he’d shut his mind to
the thoughts bombarding him, leaving open only his Finding ability. But the
stench of sewage and unclean bodies, the crowded, shouting masses of humanity,
the hundreds of beasts and vehicles in one small land-bound area, had assaulted
his physical senses as much as his psychic ones. There was more than one good
reason why sensitive Oracles did not leave Aelynn.

If fate decreed it, he would gladly sacrifice his life in
noble battle with enemies or in saving the sacred chalice. But he seriously
objected to losing his mind to an unwashed mob.

Except that the final jolt threatening to knock him over was
not the city, but the shock of finding his intended mate.

She was an oasis of peace. In her presence, all else fell
away.

And she was
exquisite
 — a
frail gardenia blooming in the midst of hell, a lady of the finest sort in a
city of Philistines. The stars had not given him any sense of her delicate
perfume, or showed the poise with which she moved, or the golden melody of her
voice. As he’d entered the chamber, her song had pierced his chest.

She was so… fragile. He could snap her delicate wrist with a
twist, encompass her waist with his hands. All Aelynn men were warriors by
training, gifted to protect the island and its sacred objects, but he felt as
if he’d just been dealt a blow that laid him flat.

Her complexion was as pale as the silvery moon, with hearts
of heightened color on her high cheekbones — probably due to his rude stare. But
he couldn’t help himself. She had hair like sunlight, and eyes… intelligent
eyes, the rarest magical blue of topaz — to his disappointment, not multihued
Aelynn eyes.

But right now, that did not matter so much as the song
thrumming through his blood and the sense of coming home to a woman who soothed
his senses.

“I beg forgiveness for my rudeness,” he said, still seeking
balance. “The journey was long, and I came here directly without resting. The
chalice is extremely important to my people.”

Rising from the piano bench, she pressed slender fingers to
her expressive lips, and her silver-blue eyes narrowed. Her golden ringlets
dangled temptingly, and he almost reached to stroke one. Instead of answering
him, she tilted her head as if listening to distant bells.

Ian clenched his staff harder and wondered if the beautiful
mate the gods had chosen for him was a lackwit. Perhaps only feeblemindedness
could complement his highly trained abilities.

“The church no longer owns property,” she finally replied,
in a voice that sang sweetly, even though her words made little sense to him.

Frowning, Ian tried again. Without the usual emotional or
mental cues he received from those with whom he conversed, he could not tell if
he was speaking her French language correctly. His gift for understanding
foreign words was not so well developed as those of his kind who traveled more
frequently. “The chalice does not belong to your church. It belongs to — ”

He could not explain Aelynn. The ring of silence would not
allow it. He wished he had more experience in the Outside World so he could
circumnavigate these limitations as easily as Kiernan did. But this was his
first time, and he must think twice about everything he said.

“The chalice belongs to me,” he decided to say. The gods
would forgive him since the sacred object belonged to all of Aelynn.

Her eyes widened in shock. He stole a moment to admire the
long golden brown lashes that made her eyes appear to fill half her face. He
tried to concentrate on her expression, but he was weary and as easily tempted
as any man, perhaps more so, given his extended abstinence. His gaze fell to
the high curves of her creamy bosom framed in a filmy froth of lace. He desperately
wished to touch her to see whether she was real or just a vision.

“Someone
stole
your
chalice?” she asked with a perplexity that indicated he still wasn’t
communicating clearly.

“Exactly,” he agreed, to keep the confusing conversation to
a minimum. “I am willing to pay for its return.”

* * *

Chantal drifted back to her seat at the piano, away from
her disturbingly intense awareness of her robed visitor. She assumed the maid
had allowed him in because he was a man of the cloth. The erotic timbre of the
monk’s voice thrilled her to the marrow, which must border on religious
perversion.

Pauline would say she had been too long without a man, but
Chantal had never had much interest in that part of her marriage. Jean used to
say she lived inside her head, not her body. She wasn’t entirely certain that
was true either. She knew desire. She often woke in the night overheated by
inappropriate dreams. She recognized the devil’s need rising in her now. She’d
simply never known a particular man who inspired it, and certainly not a
monk
!